Switching to a new computer? Make a virtual machine to hold the old one. Here's how, free.

Note: This blog post is from 2007. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

If you've ever needed to move from one computer to another, you may know the pain of losing all the work of setting up the old one. Don't wish you could just magically keep the old one around to refer to when needed? And I mean really run it, not just look at backup files. Well, here's a solution you may not have considered: make a virtual machine out of the old computer. Then while you work on the new one, you can always go back to the VM to either see how things were before, or remind yourself of apps or settings you had, etc. You can do it for free (both create the VM and then use it) on Windows, and there are options for Linux and Mac as well. Here's how.

Background, and less satisfactory approaches

What am I getting at? Well, I've had to trade up laptops a couple times in recent years, and each time I've lamented having to lose all the work that went into setting it up.

Now, some will say "take a backup", but that's no good. First, if you mean to restore onto the new machine, if I have an OEM licensed version of Windows that would wipe out the new OS. With some vendors, like Dell, that could be a problem. (If you don't use Windows, again, don't leave yet. I cover Linux and Macs below).

But even if you'd deny the significance of that, the point is that the alternative I'll describe still has many benefits over simply doing a backup/restore (in that you can continue to use both the old and new setup at once, by way of virtual machines).

Some may also point out that there are programs to help move apps to a new computer, and even built-in OS features to move settings. And then there are tools like Ghost. Or at least by taking a backup, I could refer back to the files I had in the old machine.

But again none of these offer the "magic" solution of allowing me to really keep the "old image" of the previous machine available to view and even run with while installing, configuring, and going on to use the new machine.

With the VM approach, you could keep around the old machine's installation for months or years. Just fire it up as a VM whenever you want to recall how things were on the old machine. Sweet! :-)

One Solution: VMWare Converter

So what prompted me to write this? Well, I've known about and occasionally used virtual machine software for years. I last wrote about them several months ago when the two market leaders, VMWare and Microsoft's Virtual PC/Server products, were released for free.

I figured then that creating a VM would be a solution to my challenge, but I never got around to it because I lacked space to hold the "backup". I've since gotten a larger external hard drive, and so could reconsider this.

Then I read today (in a magazine) of VMWare now having a product called VMWare Converter. Well, it turns out to be just the ticket (at least for Windows users. While VMWare runs on Linux, too, support for the Converter on Linux is experimental accoriding to their FAQ, I'll mention a Mac solution below.)

And note that beyond using VMWare Converter to create a VM out of any machine, you can also use it to make a VMWare VM out of a Virtual PC VM, or out of a Ghost image, and much more. Very compelling stuff, and again, all for free.

It seems that this is just the ticket for what I was trying to do, so I have installed it and will see how it goes. But I wanted to let folks know about it rather than wait to write of experiences after the fact.

(Even slicker, I noticed when I installed it that a hint popped up saying that if you wanted to create such a clone of a current machine without Converter being in the footprint, you could instead install Converter and create the clone from a bootable CD.)

Another Solution for Mac: Parallels Transporter

For those using Macs, you may already know that the favored tool for using VMs there, Parallels, also offers this feature in a tool called Transporter. It too can create a Parallels VM out of a Windows PC, or out of a VMWare or Virtual PC VM. There's even a youtube video showing the process.

If anyone gets to using any of these, please share your experiences. If and when I do get to using it, if there's anything to report, I'll do so also.

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